JAIPUR: Chief secretary
Niranjan Kumar Arya
will retire in January next year. The Congress government, which has entered its crucial fourth year in office, will have to find his successor shortly.
It remains to be seen if the chief minister would follow the principle of seniority or would adopt the policy of pick and choose as was done in the case of Arya, who was appointed superseding 10 IAS officers in an unprecedented move. The decision had created discontentment among bureaucrats and many senior officers opted for central deputation.
According to sources, 1985-batch officer currently on deputation at the Centre Usha Sharma is a strong contender. She is currently secretary in the department of youth affairs and is one of the senior-most officers of the state cadre. But Sharma has been out of state for a long time and whether she is interested to return to the state at this juncture is the moot point.
The other front-runners are ACS Subodh Agarwal and Sudanshu Pant. Though Agarwal was given posting out of the secretariat after the appointment of Arya to the top post for a short time, he bounced back and now holds important departments of mines, petroleum and energy. He was able to lift the ban on sand mining by the Supreme Court and his handling of the recent coal crisis deftly. He is also in charge of the chief minister's ambitious Barmer refinery project.
Next in line of present chief secretary Arya is his batchmate (1989) Rohit Kumar Singh. Rohit Kumar Singh who had made his mark as ACS medical and health during the Corona crisis who devised the well-known 'Bhilwara model 'of ruthless containment is currently on central deputation as additional secretary ministry of culture. Both Singh and his wife IPS Neena Singh are on central deputation, he is not likely to return to the state.
If seniority was given a go bye, then comes the chance of Sudhansh Pant. Pant has held important posts under Congress and is currently ACS (PHED). He is now tasked with the implementation of the ambitious Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM) which the government accords top priority.
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